Year Two, Day One

Yesterday was the anniversary of my grandson's stillbirth.  So many tears, so many memories - again, both good and very, very bad.  From now on everything is a "second" not a first.  We survived the first year, we will survive subsequent years.   But he will never be forgotten.

The night before last, one year from Liam's death in his mother's womb, I had a dream.  Not the beautiful, touching dream that my daughter in law had, yet still a good dream.  In this dream, which started sometime after 3am on the 18^th, I saw an infant from the chest up.  It (gender unknown, therefore the use of "it") wasn't a newborn, but probably a few weeks old and had a receiving blanket pulled up to the underarms.   My first sleeping thought was "this is Liam."  But then the baby looked up at me, took a breath, and started to cry, arms flailing.  Laim never breathed, never cried.  Then the dream ended.  I interpret this as a very positive dream of the near future, of an infant who will live, who we will love, who will love us, and who will cry to be held.

A Shooting Star

Several days ago, my husband was at the neighborhood "old farts" penny poker game, and I was home alone multitasking.  I was playing with my new cell phone, completing online crossword puzzles, and watching TV.  I was frustrated that my new phone had just been updated online and something had changed.  I became frustrated trying to figure out my phone – and then I went into afib.  So I called my son and my beautiful daughter in law (DIL) – asking them to call me back to see if the phone even received calls (it did).  I spoke with my DIL for a while, both of us realizing I was very emotional about the upcoming first anniversary of my grandson's stillbirth.  She was so comforting as I cried for a while and we commiserated about our mutual loss – and then I came out of afib.  We kept talking for a while longer, and then my son and I had a nice chat.  I felt so much better after the call.  My DIL told me that her period was either due soon or one day overdue (depending upon either a 26 or 28 day cycle), and that she was hoping that she was pregnant.  I had a very strong feeling, based on a dream ~8-10 days ago, that she was pregnant, but after her experiences with pregnancy loss, I didn't dare say anything except if it is supposed to happen it will.  After the call I tightly held an amethyst heart in one hand and a piece of sodalite (etched with one of my totems) in the other, and went onto my back porch (which faces NNE).  As soon as I got to the end of the porch cover so I could see the trillions of stars on that moonless night, there was a shooting star to the northeast.  It was very bright, not too long, and had a reddish tinge to the trail.  I burst into tears, saying "thank you thank you." 

The next day she posted on her blog that she had two positive pregnancy tests.  Happiness mixed with shared, remembered loss.  I have very strong positive feelings about this pregnancy – I pray that I am right.

As far as the dream, or waking vision that I had a short while ago?  It was early morning, and I had not slept well, fairly usual on prednisone.  I was listening to an audiobook, as I do every night now, eyes closed, trying to relax enough to fall asleep.  Then in the dark of my closed eyes there was a very bright central light, like a star; it faded somewhat, then another bright light/star appeared.  Then the stars merged into one, then very quickly there were very slight lines dissecting the star, almost like a cell was dividing into multiple cells.  Then it was over – seconds at the most.  I opened my eyes, feeling like I had been very aware (awake?) while that had happened, and said to myself "That was a conception dream.  My kids are already pregnant or going to be pregnant soon."  I wrote it on my calendar so I would know when it happened.  Now to keep the positive thoughts brought on by the stars….

Prednisone and general life update

It's been so long since I posted here.  It seems like my failure to taper my prednisone, and all the associated unpleasant side effects and emotions, along with the loss of another pregnancy by my beautiful daughter-in-law have turned off my ability to express my feelings in print.  So this will be a summary of the highlights and lowlights of over four months of my life.

First of all, I haven't yet succeeded in tapering below 10mg of prednisone.  I kept having breakthrough symptoms of my underlying disease (the reason I'm on prednisone – temporal arteritis) whenever I would taper beyond a certain point.  I failed miserably to get to 7.5mg in August, then failed again when only on an every other day regimen of 10/7.5mg, then failed again trying to get to 8.75mg at the 10mg for 2 days, then one day of 8.75mg…  Then, several weeks before Christmas, my heart starting acting up again.  First there were lots of PVCs – somewhat uncomfortable, but not dangerous.  Then 5 out of 6 nights in a row I had an episode of afib, each lasting anywhere from 10 minutes to several hours (and this is after 3 months of no afib episodes at all).  My husband said it was probably the stress of the upcoming holidays, which are never easy for me.  I do think it was that, combined with the stress of trying to taper and continuing to fail.  I saw my doctor, and he ran many tests.  The only abnormality was an asymptomatic UTI, which could have stimulated some of the heart irritability.  I hope it is treated now – my post-treatment culture was submitted today.  I'm still having occasional afib, and it seems to be related to the prednisone taper dosages which I've just started again.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll get through this.

And now we are approaching the one year anniversary of my grandson's birth, and his death.  I always say that the first year is the hardest for any major life tragedy.  Everything is a "first" – after that, they are seconds, and then thirds.  Not that the pain isn't still there, because it is - but there is something so agonizingly raw about "firsts."  I made it through the stress of the holidays with only a few hiccoughs; I'm not doing so well right now. 

I remember, and the memories are both wonderful and awful, intermixed, and out of sequence.  What haunts me most is the phone call from my son stating there was "no heartbeat."  My heart is still broken, at times beating fast and wild, while his never beat outside of his mother's womb.  The dreams of "connection," and then goodbye.  Did I have the connection dreams because there would never be a real world connection?  Was the goodbye dream real?  I know it was - but, again, it breaks my heart, brings the inevitable tears.  Seeing my husband's face, at last year's Christmas, full of wonder when he felt, for the first time ever in his life, our wonderfully alive grandchild doing summersaults in his mother's womb.  The happy faces, full of hope and dreams; the tragic faces full of disbelief and grief. 

Do painful experiences happen for a reason?  If so, what possible reason could this be?  Too much pain to too many loved ones.  But we go on, we learn, we survive, we live, we love, and we learn to laugh again.  And we cry, and grieve, and have an emptiness that can't be filled by anything or anyone else.  But instead of being an emptiness in the center of our being that we can't see around, it is slowly pushed to the periphery – it is there, but it doesn't rule us anymore.

Happy birthday my dear Liam – you are loved.